Since I've been gone...

Been a busy few weeks since my last post. Kate was in China for two weeks, then home for two weeks, then I left for the East Coast for 8 days. During that time, my wife started her own blog and is much more prolific in her writing. I've got some catching up to do. In the mean time, I would like to echo her thoughts that we are very excited about our new journey towards the prospect of adoption. Please keep us and the boys in your prayers as we go through this process. I will try to finish my discussion on Social Contract Theory tonight.

Social Contract Theory, Part I

The United States today is experiencing a period of political divide that has not been seen since the Civil War. Labels used to describe one particular group’s ideology have multiplied and morphed almost exponentially during the last thirty years. We hear terms like liberal, conservative, progressive, moderate, neoconservative, socialist, Marxist, communist, libertarian, radical, capitalist, anarchist and dictator. Each day it seems the public voice tries to define or redefine these terms to the aid or the detriment of the group they wish to help or harm.


The analogy to the Civil War may seem exaggerated, but from my vantage point, it is only the lack of clear geographical boundaries between the opposing sides (and perhaps also that there are more than just two sides to choose from) along with a powerful federal government that prevents armed conflict. One of my favorite quotes from Ken Burns “The Civil War” comes from the late Shelby Foote who states early on that “the reason for the Civil War was America’s failure to do what it did best, compromise”. The statement is accurate, but it implies that with the issue of slavery, somewhere there was a compromise. There wasn’t. Lincoln understood that. The slaveholders of the south understood that. Most importantly, the slaves understood that.

This brings us back to the political battles being waged today. The question remains the same. Are the issues at stake ones that can be resolved through compromise? Or are moral imperatives involved in which there can be no compromise? I have my opinions, but those are for a later post.

In my Intro to Western Civilization course taken so many years ago, I was introduced to some guys who lived a few hundred years ago and were much smarter than me. Their names were Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau. Between them they developed a theory that explains how people live together. It is called the “Social Contract” theory. In simplest terms, as long as you live like a hermit all by yourself and your actions have no impact on anyone else, you can do whatever you want. But, as soon as you decide to coexist with one or more your fellow homo sapiens, all bets are off. You can no longer sit around in your underwear all day scratching and passing gas and not taking a bath. Because as we all know from Genesis, when God decided to give Adam someone to spend time with, He didn’t create a fishing buddy. And although she wasn’t probably what Adam would have asked for,(Aren’t you glad God didn’t ask him what kind of helpmate he wanted)she definitely came with certain benefits.

But along with those benefits came some issues, and those were there long before the first big apple bite. Adam really was from Mars, and Eve was from Venus. They had to take all their differences and learn to live together. Why? Because the benefits of living together were pretty awesome. And thus, social contract theory was born. Adam agreed to only have poker night once a week, and only smoke cigars outside while Eve agreed to not decorate the entire house in soft pink or make Adam watch Steel Magnolias.

What does all this have to do with what is happening today? To be continued